Thursday, April 30, 2009

Some Dinosaurs survived the Meteor extinction


The dinosaurs disappeared at the end of Cretaceous Era ended 65 million years ago, in a Blazing Asteroid Impact Of Doom. Except for the ones that didn't:
Jim Fassett, a paleontologist who holds an emeritus position at the U. S. Geological Survey, recently published a paper in Palaeontologia Electronica with evidence that points to a pocket of dinosaurs that somehow survived in remote parts New Mexico and Colorado for up to a half million years past the end of the Cretaceous period. If true, these dinosaurs would be the only ones that made it to the Paleocene Age.
Which leads to the question: could dinosaurs have survived longer, in even more sheltered environments? Surviving even to this day in exceptionally sheltered - nay, insular - climes? Like Boston, for example:

The New York Times Company has threatened to shut the Boston Globe if employee unions don’t agree to broadscale cuts of pay and conditions.

The cuts, that will save the struggling paper $20 million a year, includes pay cuts, the end of pension contributions by the company and the elimination of lifetime job guarantees now enjoyed by some veteran employees.

Alas, the climate seems to be changing, even in as close minded and insular a place as Boston. Hurry and buy a dinosaur while you still can. I hear that they're good for lining birdcages and training puppies.

UPDATE 10 March 2010 20:24: OK, here's real (non-snarky) info about real dinosaurs and whether it was the asteroid or something else that done 'em in. The science is more interesting than you may think.

2 comments:

  1. I was probably the only one in the theater watching Jurassic Park that said. . hey!. (wrong time period mates). But Cretaceous Park just doesn't have the same catchy ring to it.

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  2. "in one of his early books, Palaeontologist Stephen Jay Gould told the story of having an argument with another boy at camp when he was (let's say) 8 years old, as to whether or not dinosaurs and humans ever coexisted. They agreed to ask an adult and the adult's opinion/decision was binding. (Gould believed that any random adult would know everything about this, since adults know everything about everything.) The adult they consulted said, of course dinosaurs and humans coexisted: after all, just look at Alley Oop. Cue the (8-year-old, future) palaeontologist crying. "

    Heh.

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